Now that’s a 1st class slice of rail estate
MANY people travel far and wide to view the beautiful old steam trains and rolling stock of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. But John and Pamela Sibley have no need to venture from their home to see the real thing – because their house is built around two Victorian railway carriages.
When their working life was over, the carriages were originally left on the beachfront at Bognor Regis in West Sussex as shelters for holidaymakers in the 1920s. They were later transformed into a home, with a roof and walls enclosing them, during the 1950s.
And today, the cars still form the centrepiece of the property, with the central corridor, or ‘ platform’, running right between the two of them. Within the cars themselves, there are three bedrooms and a dining room. A kitchen, entrance hall, bathroom, utility room and living room are housed within the outer ‘shell’ of the building that envelops the carriages.
The railway theme continues in the garden with a model steam railway running around the decking. The unique home, which is for sale with Farndell Estate Agents at a guide price of £500,000, is just 160 yards from the beach.
Owners John and Pamela spent 20 years lovingly restoring the carriages to their original condition.
‘The place was a disaster when we first moved in,’ says John, a retired garage mechanic. ‘ The carriages were painted yellow and white and there was a lurid red carpet. There was only one power supply in the hall and lots of leads coming off it. The bathroom was outside the house and there was no drainage or proper plumbing.
‘We only bought the house after our deal on another nearby property fell through,’ he says, adding that at first their plan was to knock it down and replace it with a bungalow. ‘But after a year we had fallen in love with the railway carriages and we realised we couldn’t tear them down. So we set about improving the rest of the house instead.
‘It’s not often you come across a house with two 1885 Midland Railway carriages inside. We absolutely love it. We’re used to it now, but we’re always reminded it’s different when other people come to visit. They’re often amazed by how it looks.’
John and Pamela, who have two daughters and four grandchildren, bought the three- bedroom house 23 years ago and eventually worked out the history of the carriages with help from the York National Railway Museum.
Then John and Pamela, a retired shop assistant, contacted the Midland Railway Society in Derby and were able to discover the colours they were originally painted.
‘Someone at the museum told us they were Midland 909s,’ John says. ‘We were taken to see a restored one and it looked fantastic. I knew then that I wanted ours to look like that. I worked on the carriages on and off for 20 years, making sure I got all the colours right and the windows sliding properly. It was a real labour of love and we must have spent several thousand pounds over the years getting it perfect.’
HE ADDS: ‘Getting original parts for Victorian trains is almost impossible nowadays. I spent hours searching the internet for things we needed, such as leather straps for the windows. The model railway in the garden came later when I finally got a grandson. I already had the Stephenson’s Rocket steam train to run round it, and I built the track so we could play with it.’
John believes the carriages were put in place by a farmer who wanted to cash in on Edwardian holidaymakers coming to the beach. He says: ‘In the 1920s there was a trend of bringing old carriages to beaches and using them as changing areas and huts for holidaymakers.’
The couple are selling up reluctantly. ‘We need to downsize,’ John says. ‘The house is too big for us now. We live on quite a dusty road, and living in a railway carriage means there are over 70 windows and sills that need cleaning. Pam gets annoyed by that now. Otherwise we would love to stay here.’ Farndell Estate Agents, 01243 869991